DIE HARD
The new outfit was ready. Their course of action was in the last place anyone would expect them to hit - Nakatomi Plaza in California, sister corporation of Nakatomi Enterprises, the very company that Hans worked for. Under the guise of a business trip, which Monica swallowed like a pill, Hans boarded a flight for L.A, where he would meet the others.
Their objective was simple: acquire the $640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds that Nakatomi Plaza owned. Their plan of action: Disable all the security around the main vault until they were able to open it, while holding anyone who happened to remain in the building hostage. Although this was more of a cash-grab than an act of terrorism, (after all, what could be better than to have enough money to finance his entire career in terrorism, potentially sink his hooks into every government in the U.S and Europe, and give one final 'fuck you' to the sister of the workplace where he constantly slaved for hours, pretending he had 'gone straight'?) Hans hinted that his position as former leader of the Volksfrei was… advantageous.
Leaping into the back of the stolen Pacific Courier truck alongside his minions (or most of them, anyway - Karl and Theo were taking the latter's car there), Hans turned his radio on and gave the command to Heinrich, who was in the driver's seat of the truck, to start the engine. As they slowly rumbled away from the airport, Hans smirked to himself. It had been so long since he'd gone on such a mission, he could feel every nerve in his body alight with such extreme excitement.
"Why did we have to take this damn ambulance with us?" Tony grumbled, gesturing towards the vehicle that somehow Eddie (their newest member, who unlike the rest of them, only had some car thefts on his criminal record) had somehow managed to steal from some hospital, without raising any suspicion.
Hans raised an eyebrow at him. "If you have any issues with our getaway vehicle, you are more than welcome to attempt to outrun the police on foot."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know perfectly well what you meant," Hans snapped. Karl clearly wasn't exaggerating when he said his kid brother could win gold medals when it came to whining. "However, if you had any better ideas as to how we were going to smuggle our getaway vehicle onto the Nakatomi Plaza grounds, you should have spoken up."
Tony lowered his head, clearly shamed into silence. "Well?" Hans said, raising an eyebrow.
"Sorry, sir."
The rest of the journey passed in a comfortable silence. Which was very fortunate, as Hans didn't know how much more of Tony's blabbering he could take.
Finally, the truck stopped. Everybody remained frozen, as though moving a muscle could jeopardize the entire mission. Hans took his radio out of his pocket, and everyone else followed his lead. After what felt like an eternity, they finally heard Theo's voice over their radios, the English words loud and clear.
"We're in."
The truck backed up towards the secret entrance that Eddie had told them about, and the back end began to lower. The instant it hit the ground, the truck stopped, and they began to file out, in the direction of the elevator. By the time the elevator opened, the entire building was locked down.
Eddie instantly got to work putting on the outfit of the bodyguard that Karl had shot. In the meantime, Tony got to work manually disabling the phone lines, followed by his brother Karl. However, the latter merely cut through the phone lines with a chainsaw, ignoring his brother's panicked protests. Karl smirked and walked away.
Finally, everyone piled into the elevator, making what they believed to be their final stop - the 30th floor.
The instant the doors opened, they burst in, firing into the air and taking everyone in the building as a hostage. Fritz, the pervert, took a moment to admire the topless figure of a woman who'd quite clearly had her private time with her boyfriend interrupted. Hans, however, simply watched as the chaos unfolded, the expression on his face unreadable. These were mere party goers they were dealing with - they would be subdued and at his feet in seconds.
Sure enough, soon every last person in the building was standing in a huddle in front of him. It was time to begin.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, trying to get their attention. "Ladies and gentlemen."
Finally, they shut up. Which was a relief; Hans didn't want to have to waste any more bullets on warning shots.
"Due to the Nakatomi Corporation's legacy of greed around the globe, they are about to be taught a lesson in the real use of power," he intoned coldly. "You will be witnesses."
Judging by the stunned silence that came over the crowd, Hans took it that he was understood. He snapped his notebook shut and looked into the crowd. "Now, where is Mr Takagi?"
Unsurprisingly, nobody spoke up. Idiots. They're just making this harder on themselves.
"Joseph Yoshinobu Takagi," Hans prompted, starting to move towards the crowd. "Born Kyoto, 1937. Family emigrated to San Pedro, California, 1939." He began scanning every Japanese man's face in the crowd as he casually recited the elusive Takagi's biography, enjoying the unnerving effect it had on the group of hostages. "Interned at Manzanar 1942-43. Scholarship student, University of California, 1955. Law degree, Stanford, 1962. MBA, Harvard, 1970. President, Nakatomi Trading. Vice chairman, Nakatomi Investment Group -"
"Enough." A man stood up behind him, prompting Hans to turn around. To his credit, he did not flinch under Hans' cold look, but continued to look him squarely in the eye.
"And father of five," Hans finished, glaring at him distastefully.
"I am Takagi," the man stated unnecessarily.
Biting back a sarcastic quip, Hans smiled and extended a hand. "How do you do?" he said. "It is a pleasure to meet you."
Karl, who had slipped into the crowd unnoticed, grabbed the man and forced him into the elevator. Hans followed him in, humming Ode to Joy as he pressed the button for the 34th floor, where he knew the conference room was located. "Nice suit," he said, trying to break the silence. "John Phillips, London. I have two myself. Rumour has it that Arafat buys his there."
As the doors opened, Tony met them there. Taking over watching Takagi from his brother, he followed Hans as the latter strolled across the rather vast floor, coming to a stop at a model of the Nakatomi tower. "And when Alexander the Great saw the breadth of his domain he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer," Hans intoned, remembering an old quote he'd heard at school. "Benefits of a classical education."
Not entirely true, of course - he might have had a really good primary education, but as he bitterly recalled, his education ceased when he was put in Ursula's custody. However, he felt that he had a lot more going for him in the brains department than the man standing in front of him, even if said man did have a law degree and an MBA. After all, when all was said and done, which one of them was in charge now?
"Oh, that's beautiful," Hans breathed, gesturing towards a model of a bridge. I always enjoyed to make models when I was a boy. The exactness, the attention to every conceivable detail…" he let a small smile grace his lips. "It's beautiful."
Confused, Takagi couldn't help but ask, "Is this what this is all about, our project in Indonesia? Contrary to what you people may think, we are going to develop that region, not exploit it."
"I believe you. I read the article in Forbes," Hans replied sarcastically. Then, he forced a smile on his face. "Mr Takagi," he said, extending a hand and placing it on the other man's shoulder as he ushered him into the conference room. "I could talk about industrialisation and men's fashions all day, but I'm afraid work must intrude, and my associate Theo has some questions for you. Sort of… 'fill in the blanks' questions, actually."
Theo was sitting at a table, behind a laptop. The laptop screen showed the following message:
"CEO Workstation
Nakatomi Socrates BSD 9.2
Z-Level Central Core
Preliminary Clearance Approved
Subroute: Finance/Alpha Access
Authorization:
Ultra-Gate Key
Daily Cypher "
"I don't have that code," Takagi protested, straightening up abruptly. "You guys broke in here to access our computer? Any information you could get, when they wake up in Tokyo in the morning, they'll change it. You won't be able to blackmail our executives, threaten our -"
"Sit down," Hans growled impatiently, having had enough of this back-and-forth conversation that was getting them nowhere. Takagi's eyes showed shock at the sudden shift in tone, but to his credit, he obeyed. "Mr Takagi, I am really not interested in your computer." After a few seconds debating with himself on how much to let on, he decided to continue. The man, for all his intelligence and degrees, was reduced to nothing more than an expandable hostage. Considering how much of a nuisance he'd proven himself to be, he was nearing his expiry date in any case. Therefore, there was no harm in enlightening him - who knew, it may even make the man's night, or what was left of it.
"But I need the code key, because I am interested in the 640 million dollars in negotiable bearer bonds that you have locked in your vault. And the computer controls the vault."
"You want money?" Takagi looked thoroughly confused. "What kind of terrorists are you?" At this, Hans let out a low chuckle. "Who said we were terrorists?"
The other man looked like he didn't know whether to believe him or not. "The bonds represent, at most… 10 days' operating capital for your parent organisation. It's really no more than a temporary inconvenience."
The mood changed. With a cold look at Takagi, Hans began slowly unscrewing the silencer on his pistol. "Now… the code, please."
"It's useless to you," Takagi protested, beginning to sweat as he apparently realised he could no longer stall for time. "There are seven safeguards on our vault and the code key is only one of them, you'll never get it open!"
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the man's lack of common sense, Hans pressed, "Then there's no reason not to tell it to us."
"I told you," Theo murmured to Karl.
"It's not over yet," Karl grumbled back.
Hans shot both of them an exasperated look. Here they were, in the middle of what could possibly be the greatest heist ever executed for centuries to come, and they decided to amuse themselves by betting on a hostage's life? Maybe not so surprising with Karl, but Theo was supposed to be the sensible one of the two.
"It's a very nice suit, Mr Takagi. It would be a shame to ruin it," Hans threatened.
Still no response. "I am going to count to three. There will not be a four. Give me the code."
No response. "One."
His hand went to his gun, which was lying on the table. "Two."
His grip tightened around the gun. "Three."
"I don't know it, I'm telling you! Get on a jet and ask the chairman. I'm telling you, you're just going to have to kill me."
"OK." He aimed the pistol and shot the man in the head. Blood spattered onto the glass doors behind Takagi's corpse. "We do it the hard way. Tony, see if you can dispose of that. Karl, you'd better check on Heinrich's work up on the machine floor."
Suddenly, a loud clatter could be heard. Suspicious, Karl ran out to investigate. Hans rolled his eyes. His henchman was clearly getting paranoid. All the hostages were in the main building, no doubt too scared to so much as move a muscle for fear of getting a bullet in their brain.
Several minutes later, Karl returned. "Nothing."
I could have told you so, Hans thought. "See to Heinrich."